Here Are Some Action Movies That Gave Us Something To Talk About

By Brian Richards | Social Media | March 18, 2024 |

By Brian Richards | Social Media | March 18, 2024 |

The Fall Guy, the upcoming film adaptation of the 1980s television series starring Lee Majors, recently premiered at South by Southwest earlier this week, and the audience who saw it for the first time also got to hear from the film’s stars, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, and from its director, David Leitch. They described the film as a love letter to the craft of filmmaking, and to the crew members (particularly the stunt performers) who give their all to make the best movies they possibly can.

“We hope that it’s reflective of how much the crew gives to every film,” Gosling said. “There are so many cynical movies about moviemaking. The crews care so much. They give so much, it’s amazing. It’s things no one will ever notice. They put so much love and attention into every detail. And they get no credit — well, they get a credit at the end but it goes so fast. It was fun, on some small level, to reflect how much they care.”

Actress-writer-director Julia Marchese (who I’ve previously written about when she asked about films languishing in Development Hell, and again when she asked about weird and obscure movies to watch with your friends) posed this newest query on Twitter:

For those of us who love action movies, and how exciting and mind-blowing their action sequences can be, we should thank the stunt community for their hard work and ingenuity that contribute to the entertainment we get from action movies we know and love, and also those we don’t know, and have yet to discover. The very thought of being able to program an entire line-up of action movies for audiences to watch on the big screen is always a delightful one. Here are a few that were suggested in response to Julia’s tweet:

John Woo is considered one of the greatest action directors who has ever lived, and his Hong Kong action films are considered the stuff of legend. (There is a longstanding rumor that Quentin Tarantino was in a meeting with a studio executive who complimented Woo by saying, “He’s pretty good at making an action film.” To which Tarantino responded, “Yeah, and Michelangelo is pretty good at painting a ceiling.”) Hard Boiled, starring Chow Yun-Fat (who has starred in several of the action films Woo directed in Hong Kong), and Tony Leung (who was recently seen in Shang-Chi’s Fine-Ass Daddy And Those Ten Bracelets Looking Good On His Forearms Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), is thought by many of Woo’s fans to be his very best film, and it’s easy to see why.

Iron Man is the film that helped to launch the near-unstoppable juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but none of it would be possible without the existence and success of Blade. Wesley Snipes plays the Daywalker himself, who will kill every vampire that crosses his path, and look like a badass while doing so. The opening scene immediately drops the audience into a world where vampires exist, and where Blade is more terrifying than all of them.

Every single film in the John Wick series could be used as a perfect example for this article, but for now, let’s go with the first film that started it all, and how Keanu Reeves as the title character dealt with some unwelcome “dinner guests” at his house. Which showed viewers how it was going to be a cut above the rest when it came to its action sequences.

Jackie Chan is known worldwide for doing his highly entertaining stunts and fight choreography in films such as Drunken Master 2, Rumble in the Bronx, and the Rush Hour series. But Police Story 3: Supercop (known in the U.S. as simply Supercop) is best known not just for Chan and his physical antics, but for featuring Michelle Yeoh, who showed that she was every bit as formidable, skillful, and charismatic as her co-star.

This is not the only action film with Charlize Theron that will make an appearance here, but Atomic Blonde is probably the only film that will make sure you never hear the late, great George Michael’s “Father Figure” the same way again, after seeing it used as background music for Theron being engaged in some utterly brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Back in the 2000s, Jet Li took Hollywood by storm, and graced our screens in numerous action films like Romeo Must Die, Kiss of the Dragon, and The One. But long before that happened, he became a superstar thanks to his role as folk hero/martial arts master Wong Fei Hung in the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy.

Because making one balls-to-the-wall crime story with an unforgettable car chase wasn’t enough, The French Connection director William Friedkin decided to make another. To Live and Die in L.A. follows a reckless Secret Service agent (William L. Peterson) who is willing to break every rule there is to take down the counterfeiter (Willem Dafoe) who murdered his partner.

Long before he was known as a racist, misogynist, anti-Semite, and an absolute schlanger who was welcomed back to Hollywood with far too many open arms, Mel Gibson was known for one of his most iconic roles as Max Rockatansky, the laconic ex-cop with a razor-sharp sense of self-preservation, and a skill for inflicting vehicular carnage on his enemies behind the wheel, in director/co-writer George Miller’s first three Mad Max films. The best and most popular chapter of the original trilogy is Mad Max 2, better known to fans in the U.S. as The Road Warrior.

Some of the best action movies place their heroes in utterly dire circumstances, with their backs against the wall, and with no help or hope of escape. The Raid, a.k.a. The Raid: Redemption, is a perfect example of this, as it follows a team of S.W.A.T. officers who are trapped in a high-rise apartment building with a crew of merciless drug dealers they’ve been sent to arrest, and whose warpath against the cops will not stop until every single one of them is dead. The fight scenes in which both groups battle each other to the death are almost guaranteed to make your heart rate spike.

The action sequences in Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy are actually the least likely things about this film that will knock you on your ass, and get under your skin as you watch it. But that doesn’t mean they won’t pin you to your seat, and make you say “Holy sh-t!” more than once because of how impressive they are.

Even if we never heard his infamous rant against crew members on set who were ignoring precautions against COVID, when it comes to making movies that entertain from beginning to end, Tom Cruise is known to take his work very seriously. The Mission Impossible films are no exception, and they each contain action sequences that will make viewers ask, “How is this man still alive?!” Mission Impossible - Fallout not only gives us another mission in which IMF agent Ethan Hunt risks life and limb to save the world, but it also gives us Henry Cavill fighting alongside him, and has the unforgettable moment of Cavill cocking his arms as if they are guns as he readies himself to resume pummeling his opponent.

Steven Soderbergh had this to say about Mad Max: Fury Road when he saw it: “I don’t understand two things: I don’t understand how they’re not still shooting that film, and I don’t understand how hundreds of people aren’t dead.” This is very understandable, as all of the action scenes in Mad Max: Fury Road hit with the power, speed, and ferocity of an F5 tornado. It won over critics and fans who had their doubts on whether another Mad Max film would be worth watching after three decades, and it also gave people even more reason to demand that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences introduce a category at the Oscars to honor the stunt community, who have deserved their flowers for far too long.

Other action movies were recommended, and the list was longer than a receipt from CVS: Enter the Dragon, The Wild Bunch, RRR, Kung Fu Hustle, Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Commando, They Live, Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, Speed Racer, The Killer (the one directed by John Woo, not the Netflix film directed by David Fincher), 36 Chambers of Shaolin, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Ronin, Casino Royale, Dragons Forever, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, Sorcerer, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Iron Monkey, Action Jackson, Heat, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Matrix Reloaded, Kill Bill, House of Flying Daggers, The Boxer’s Omen, Drive (the one with Mark Dacascos, not the one with Ryan Gosling and his snazzy jacket), Point Break (the good version, not the remake that very few people wanted or even liked), Broken Path (a.k.a. Broken Fist), El Mariachi, The Villainess, Baby Assassins, and Dredd. Please keep in mind that these are only just some of the films that were mentioned.

So if you’re looking for some action movies to watch again, or watch for the very first time? You have plenty of options to choose from, and to geek out over, once the bullets and fists stop flying, and the bodies stop hitting the floor.